Jamestown Quotes

They Said It

'A more damned crew hell never vomited.'

- Virginia Company treasurer George Sandys on the quality of the settlers at Jamestown in 1623¹⁹

'For feature, countenance, and proportion, (Pocahontas) much exceedeth any of the rest of his people, but for wit and spirit, the only nonpareil of his country.'

- John Smith describing Powhatan's daughter, Pocahontas²⁰

'My Master Atkins hath sold me for £150 sterling like a damned slave.'White indentured servant Thomas Best on Virginia's unusual labor practices, 1623²¹'Here! Shoot me, foregod, fair mark shoot!'

- Virginia governor William Berkeley as he confronted Nathaniel Bacon and his band of 500 rebels, 22 June 1676²²

'Deeply stained with dirt; soiled dirty, foul. . . . Having dark or deadly purposes, malignant; pertaining to or involving death, deadly; baneful, disastrous, sinister. . . . Foul, iniquitous, atrocious, wicked.'

- The meaning of 'black' in the sixteenth century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary²³

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